LogInIt works well on complex materials.
Rendering complex shapes and materials can be challenging, so researchers from the University of Milan and Université de Lorraine came up with a new anisotropic specular image-based lighting method that "enhances realism by leveraging the BRDF's major axis."
"The BRDF is the "Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function." It gives the reflectance of a target as a function of illumination geometry and viewing geometry. The BRDF depends on wavelength and is determined by the structural and optical properties of the surface, such as shadow-casting, multiple scattering, mutual shadowing, transmission, reflection, absorption, and emission by surface elements, facet orientation distribution, and facet density," according to the University of Massachusetts Boston.
The creators of the new method use several environment samples positioned along the major axis of the specular microfacet BRDF and "derive an analytic formula to determine the two closest and two farthest points from the reflected direction on an approximation of the BRDF confidence region boundary. The two farthest points define the BRDF major axis, while the two closest points are used to approximate the BRDF width. The environment level of detail is derived from the BRDF width and the distance between the samples."
Image: Giovanni Cocco et al.
As you can see from the image above, this method renders an image much closer to the original than other approaches, according to the researchers.
If you'd like to learn more technical details about the project, read the paper here and check out the visualizer on GitHub. Also, join our 80 Level Talent platform and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Reddit, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.